First Shaker Dresser

Shopping for furniture is difficult, finding the right dresser, chair, couch is a daunting task. When you build it yourself you must also factor in what can you actually finish with the tools and skill set you have. I spent about 6 months reviewing plans for dressers and chest of drawers. Finally I decided to keep it simple and classic, I selected a shaker chest of drawers. I got my plans from a book of measured drawings of shaker furniture and I would recommend picking up one or two books on shaker furniture if you are considering building your own.
The design is simple and I actually dumbed it down, the frame of my chest is joined with dados and pocket holes instead of dovetail grooves. I figured I would use oak with walnut to dress up the design.
The wood for this came from an oak tree my father and I had milled. I built my sons crib with this lumber and I had just enough left to build the dresser. The lumber had knots and defects, but I wanted everything from the same tree so I used dutchmen to cover the defects. A dutchman is really just a patch, these are dovetails but calling them bow ties or butterflies is fine too.

What I learned:
1. Dovetail drawers are the way to go, once your dovetail jig is dialed in. I have done box joints for years and the plan was to use box joint drawers. I made 3 drawers using box joints, I screwed up the 4th drawer after I have removed my box joint jig from my saw. I decided to try my dovetail machine on the replacement drawer. I carefully followed the manual and the drawer came out great. BUT I found that this drawer was much easier to assemble and square than the box joint drawers. So for me its dovetail drawers from here on out.
2. No matter the piece consider using mechanical drawer slides. My dresser uses a close fit, wood on wood drawer slides. These work well, if you are putting fronts on the drawers that hide the opening, use mechanical slides. Not the cheap ones, use the high end ones that are soft closing.
3. Spray Lacquer is an excellent finish. I already knew this but this project made me remember how easy it is to get a great finish in a short period of time. I use a harbor freight spray gun and a 3 to 1 ratio of lacquer to lacquer thinner.

Overall I am extremely happy with this dresser. I love how the shaker design makes it incredibly sturdy. I am looking forward to building more shaker furniture.

2 Responses to "First Shaker Dresser"

Your Shaker dresser looks real good. Nice Job. Is that maple wood? What wood did you use for the drawer sides — walnut? Are the drawer backs maple as well?
I work in a cabinet shop 45 minutes (interstate travel) south of Atlanta, Ga. Since we produce a lot of cabinets, we don’t have time to dovetail our drawers. We use butt joints and a nail gun! It’s not a pretty as a dovetail joint but we build ’em fast and we build ’em sturdy. My shop uses all wood construction — no particle board and usually no MDF. However, if the customer wants to save some money; we will make the cabinet doors out of MDF.
Anyhow, I just wanted to connect with you and let you know that your work is appreciated. I took woodshop way back when I went to High school (circa late 70’s) and at the time, I never thought I’d ever use any of the skills I learned back then. Please tell your students that even if they don’t plan on ever working with wood for a living, that they will never know when the skills they learn in shop will benefit them later in life. Things like reading a tape measure (you’d be amazed at how many young men come to our shop looking for work and they can’t even read a tape measure), using the correct power tool for the job at hand, how to safely use all the tools in the shop, etc. There are so many great life lessons to be learned in a woodshop class.
I also enjoyed reading the articles on your website. As soon as I find the time. I’m going to make one of your cutting boards, the Smart phone Lamp (I love that one ), and maybe my on version of the checker board table. Have a great day. I salute you sir for carrying on the torch and teaching tomorrow’s leaders.

Joey,
I can not thank you enough for your kind words. To best respond to this I am going to make this a blog post. The sides of the drawers are walnut and the front and back are poplar.
Thank you,
Paul